civis notes 3

8-22

A la Philip K. Dick & Stanislaw Lem-- (The Matrix) : “artificial world”--and electronic beings: “God” turns off switch. (?echo:God actually ceases to exist?)

[edited material]

We define humans by patterning. Involves use 'salient characteristics' socially defined and transmitted by patterned interaction. 'Language' only part of picture. If dress defines man then stature (position within social structure) defines effective identity [note that this includes self-perception...that naked king seems to have many an application]. No less reference infamous college experiment [Stanford Prison Experiment]. 'Archetypal' images indeed. [Reference here is to the general placing of origins of such images in some ancestral memory vault, probably genetically-inherited. I may be being a bit sarcastic here. The point being made is that the source of such images is indeed nonverbal/nonlingual and has to do with the kinds of perception that are possible in the preverbal/nonlingual state and the kinds of learning and how they might be recorded--by definition not in terms of language. Thought occurs before language, and that kind of thought persists afterwards. The relationship of set-system theory here is quite applicable but enough of the editorial mode.] Ads and popular movies resultant from effective mass identity though tend to some social transformation. Analysis by modal means intrinsically flawed, in fact basically useless. Add authoritarian nature aggressive societies and that this means masses are rule-followers.

The existence of an ordered system demands consistent energy input--i.e. 'life'-sustaining practises. In order for a social organism (government for instance) to exist there must be practises designed to ensure its continued existence. The most important component in this is controlling the non-privileged. These are the masses on whom the privileged depend and by whom they are continually threatened. [This should be obvious. The masses are important in urban situations, by nature. Urban landscapes present considerable barriers to nearly any kind of warfare, and by reports the science-fictional sorts of weaponry first of all necessary (which won't damage the buildings, for instance) aren't quite yet available, and identification of friendlies has always presented a problem...most of all, ironically, when identification of 'pacification' (read soldiers, of course) forces is quite easy. Also, someone needs to be available to do the dirty work--one mark of an inefficient conqueror of a foreign land is simply killing the inhabitants, and then finding that someone needs to make things run. Slaves are much better than corpses. The problem is that the masses outside the U.S. haven't been conditioned well enough to the U.S. version of reality. 'Honor' is a concept basically invalid in America; rather, the key concept is 'patriotism' and behind that 'conformity'; this means that the leaders judge and act by means of values based on expediency--current expediency, note well. Since the first concern is preservation of the status quo, and thus preservation of power, both strategies and tactics are devoted to the present and very near future.]

It is interesting to note that money alone can't quite lend social stature.

[edited material]
--sd

civis notes 2

8-22

A la Philip K. Dick & Stanislaw Lem-- (The Matrix) : “artificial world”--and electronic beings: “God” turns off switch. (?echo:God actually ceases to exist?)

[edited material]

We define humans by patterning. Involves use 'salient characteristics' socially defined and transmitted by patterned interaction. 'Language' only part of picture. If dress defines man then stature (position within social structure) defines effective identity [note that this includes self-perception...that naked king seems to have many an application]. No less reference infamous college experiment [Stanford Prison Experiment]. 'Archetypal' images indeed. [Reference here is to the general placing of origins of such images in some ancestral memory vault, probably genetically-inherited. I may be being a bit sarcastic here. The point being made is that the source of such images is indeed nonverbal/nonlingual and has to do with the kinds of perception that are possible in the preverbal/nonlingual state and the kinds of learning and how they might be recorded--by definition not in terms of language. Thought occurs before language, and that kind of thought persists afterwards. The relationship of set-system theory here is quite applicable but enough of the editorial mode.] Ads and popular movies resultant from effective mass identity though tend to some social transformation. Analysis by modal means intrinsically flawed, in fact basically useless. Add authoritarian nature aggressive societies and that this means masses are rule-followers.

The existence of an ordered system demands consistent energy input--i.e. 'life'-sustaining practises. In order for a social organism (government for instance) to exist there must be practises designed to ensure its continued existence. The most important component in this is controlling the non-privileged. These are the masses on whom the privileged depend and by whom they are continually threatened. [This should be obvious. The masses are important in urban situations, by nature. Urban landscapes present considerable barriers to nearly any kind of warfare, and by reports the science-fictional sorts of weaponry first of all necessary (which won't damage the buildings, for instance) aren't quite yet available, and identification of friendlies has always presented a problem...most of all, ironically, when identification of 'pacification' (read soldiers, of course) forces is quite easy. Also, someone needs to be available to do the dirty work--one mark of an inefficient conqueror of a foreign land is simply killing the inhabitants, and then finding that someone needs to make things run. Slaves are much better than corpses. The problem is that the masses outside the U.S. haven't been conditioned well enough to the U.S. version of reality. 'Honor' is a concept basically invalid in America; rather, the key concept is 'patriotism' and behind that 'conformity'; this means that the leaders judge and act by means of values based on expediency--current expediency, note well. Since the first concern is preservation of the status quo, and thus preservation of power, both strategies and tactics are devoted to the present and very near future.]

It is interesting to note that money alone can't quite lend social stature.

[edited material]
--sd

notes

[some edited]

Language (as we know it) intrinsically modal--which models on/off supposition recurrent through all human reasoning (except that generally discounted, or labelled 'mythic' or generally much worse). (Identity principle also vice similarity principle. Tacit assumption: if something fits within defined field of variance, then it is effectively identical to any other thing that fits within that field, and discrepancies not identified (not defined within field of variance) are intrinsically unimportant.

--Concept of intrinsic value: meaningless. Denotive description not intrinsic (by definition, note). This directly implies kinds of separated knowledge--because information control is the trues form of power (money=information about right to live).

(pause)
[as noted]
When the relative is expressed in terms of the absolute, there is intrinsic error. Thus “You have confused the true and the real” because truth is a matter of representation and for that matter thus of understanding. Numbers occur in translation--they represent quantities (based on 'salient characteristics'--a very important phrase in many respects) abstracted from the real environment by means of a representational system (language, that is) which is flawed by inherent assumptions, some of them so basic to our experience that we can become aware of them only with great difficulty. Our cultures see ownership as intrinsic. Privilege is an expression of social stature (control of information--bearing in mind that “money” is information!), and society as we know it--based on an aggressive model, that is--requires such structuring. The stability of modern cultures depends on it. Authority=stature=privilege. There is also thus an automatic separation between governing and governed. [One might name any number of people who went from the lower classes to the governing class. One might also note that they either changed viewpoints or died, generally. Coincidentally, of course. Statistics are not a tool for causative analysis.] Implicit in any aggressive society is whole is more important than parts, that the “good of the many outweighs the good of the few”. This could be used to defend the Nazi persecution of Jews (it provided both rationale and clear (supposed) basis of identity (Aryan nation)) because it provided a unifying force for Germany. “The truth” is always in terms of a system of values and consequent definitions and is at least nearly entirely relative--because base values and definitions are dependent upon social position. The existence of the homeless amounts to the declaration that the right to live is dependent upon functioning as a wage-earning member of society. Factor in current (as of the early 90s) valuation of correct attitude over competence and a steady progression to a dystopian dictatorship (ruled, mind you, by numbers, and thus putatively unfailingly just--but the numbers, money, are assigned...by social stature) where correct and possible attitudes are rigorously defined and any variance therefrom is rewarded with (at least effective) execution. [(No job=homeless=how do you survive? ('temperate' climate, mind, temperatures here right now get up to 42 degrees Fahrenheit))] The current attempts of the Bush administration to define good in terms of social stability maintained by capitalistic structuring of social rank (and control) are surprising only in that there is no real attempt to disguise with platitudes. The groundwork has been fully laid for the loss of even illusive freedom. [I am not a communist, by any means. Communism can't work, because at the heart lies the idea that one works to his/her best function (state-defined, which means that error will occur in the form of information being scrambled in the form of the bureaucracy steadily and rapidly changing to a form where preservation of the bureaucracy is a prime good and any other functioning secondary, and that thus influence will be an active force) and is paid to his/her needs...again state-defined, and note that there then is...money. Pay in goods requires a representative system=information about right to posession=money. Neither communism nor capitalism have ever or will ever exist; all have been socialist institutions, in that there are governmental controls on commerce and that there are (however inadequate, as in the United States) governmental programs to assist the needy. More than that, the very idea of a communist state existing solitarily is absurd. This in fact was an expansionist and imperialist doctrine, no matter the antecedents...and had nothing to do with equality. A pyramidal structure of authority cannot and will not support equality. In this case the identity principle works; information=information. The actual statement of social stature in the U.S. becomes ...then...possession of information and control of access to it.]
...
Numbers cannot lie: but then neither can they tell the truth. Their connection to reality is based on the same complicated skeined scheme of concepts (definitions+values) as is language--and that connection is necessarily in terms of language. That a lingual analogue (similar not identical to language) is employed rather than language itself does make some difference (identity does not equal similarity)--but in mass-analysis situations will have little practical effect. [What will have effect is archetypes which lie below lingual level and are the essential constructions of the prelingual consciousness and thus effect all later learning at a sublingual and therefore hard-to-approach level....though this is actually the level of experience, realtime. What is the sound of one hand clapping??] Actual motivational sequencing isn't explicit because actual values are not explicit. Attempting to describe personal, subjective sensations in terms of 'object-oriented' representational system possible only because of extreme similarity among users (Hoyle, Black Cloud).
--sd